


Care and Feeding

by pprfaith



Series: Naughty Hookers (Swathed in Wool) [4]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Amy the paralegal, Children, F/F, F/M, Families of Choice, Fluff and Crack, Future Fic, Hale Children - Freeform, Hale Family Feels, Happy Fluffies all around, Humor, Kid!Fic, Lawyers doing Law Stuff, M/M, OC Protagonist, POV Outsider, Piercings, Sequel, Side-Story, Tattoos, deaged characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-22
Updated: 2016-09-22
Packaged: 2018-08-16 16:45:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8109964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pprfaith/pseuds/pprfaith
Summary: Remember Amy, the paralegal, who gets mentioned in Hook, Yarn, Sinker exactly once? This is her take on the Hales. Set two years after the end of HYS.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes I binge write. I have no idea what I write, why I write it, and sometimes I even forget that I wrote anything at all. I _think_ i wrote this the day I finished HYS, but I can't be sure. In either case, it's weird and self-indulgent and I hope you enjoy it.

+

Remember the paralegal named Amy who is mentioned exactly once in HYS? Yeah. That one.

+

When Amy gets the job at CC&H, the first three things she is told are a) Mr. Callum is always loud, that doesn’t mean he’s angry, b) Mrs. Callum is a bitch and her claws are sharp and c) Mr. Hale is, depending on who you ask, a shark, a womanizer or a plain sociopath. 

Since Amy quit her last job because of a senior partner who thought ‘no’ meant ‘try harder’, she resolves to stay as far away from Peter Hale as she can. He makes good eye candy, but an asshole is an asshole, no matter the circumference of its criminally attractive neck.

Which works out fine for exactly five weeks before he comes crashing into the bullpen in all his perfectly coiffed glory and snarls, “Is there anyone here who actually has a degree in law, or did you all win your jobs in a fucking raffle?”

When everyone freezes like deer in headlights instead of answering – how do you answer a question like that without getting fired? – he sighs, mutters something about ‘fucking sheeple’ and rephrases, “Is anyone here familiar with the Burgess case?”

Amy, who helped Beth organize the paperwork for the case as part of her orientation, gets a sinking feeling in her stomach, even as she raises her hand. 

Hale looks her up and down in a way that should make her feel like meat at the butcher’s, but really just makes her feel… inadequate. If it weren’t directed at her, that glare would be something to admire. It’s hard to pack that much scorn into a single look. 

“And you are?”

“Amy Thompson, sir. The new girl.”

He waves a hand at her like he doesn’t give a fuck, before ordering, “Come along, Thompson.”

Amy very pointedly does _not_ ask if he made that reference on purpose, and simply follows him back into his office, where paperwork is _everywhere_. 

No Beth to be seen.

Hale slumps onto his sofa in an artful sprawl, and indicates the mess. “The lovely Beth forgot to file the appeals the way I asked her to, so now I have twenty-four hours to figure this shit out and guess who called in sick for the rest of the week just now?”

He snarls for emphasis. Amy decides to preemptively clear a few things up. “I only helped her the last few weeks, as part of my orientation. I know what the case is about, vaguely, but I’m not really sure what help I can be. You might be better off with Joel. He helped Beth before I came along.”

A snort as Hale straightens up enough to reach a mug of coffee buried in the mess. He takes a sip, grimaces and then swallows it down in one go. 

“Joel,” he drawls the name, mockingly, “also just tried to hide behind the copy machine when I asked for help, so whatever he knows isn’t worth the hassle of coaxing it out of him.”

Amy can’t help it. “Well, if you hadn’t blown in there like the wrath of god, he might not have tried to become one with the office equipment.”

There is a long silence after this, during which Amy tries to figure out how she’s going to explain to her mother that she lasted only five weeks on this job. 

Then, abruptly, Hale laughs. 

“I see Kali finally found someone with a spine. Congratulations.” He points at his desk. “Start unfucking that. I’ll get more coffee.”

+

They win. 

Amy isn’t really sure how, because she has slept five hours in three days at that point, but they win and Peter – not Mr. Hale, not ever again after he fell asleep on a stack of files and she saw him drool – claps her on the shoulder and announces, “I’m keeping you.”

+

There’s a secret to dealing with Peter Hale. And that secret is that the only thing he hates more than incompetence is competent people who don’t speak up. 

So Amy says what she thinks, doesn’t sugarcoat anything, and they get along fine. 

He invites her out for drinks after a successful case as a reward and she defends him to the other employees until she realizes that he likes being the monster in the basement. Then she plays it up in the break room and regales him with the best reactions over business lunch.

Somehow, someway, she thinks they’re almost something like friends. 

Then his family happens. 

+

Peter disappears for two weeks without a trace and then there’s a memo one morning, about how Mr. Hale has a family emergency and is taking a sabbatical for a few months. 

Amy gets called into Mrs. Callum’s office thirty minutes later and handed a stack of files. 

“Peter asked that you deal with this personally. Speed it up as much as you can, come to me if you need help and I don’t think I need to tell you to keep your mouth shut, do I?”

Amy, staring at the first page, which says, very clearly ‘adoption’ on the top, nods mutely. 

Laura Emily Hale, age ten, mother Talia Hale, father Paul Hale, nee Trevors.

Derek Michael Hale, age six, mother Talia Hale, father Paul Hale, nee Trevors.

Cora Maria Hale, age six months, mother Talia Hale, father Paul Hale, nee Trevors. 

Amy does everything she can to accelerate the adoption process, googles Peter’s home town’s newspaper and then gets very, very drunk.

+

The Peter who comes back after six months is less Hear Me Roar and more Give Me Coffee. 

He’s tired, cranky, stressed and even more short-tempered than usual with the minions. He snaps at her, too, but she tries not to take it personally. Peter has always been a prickly cactus, she’s used to his razor-blade-tipped tongue. 

Mixed metaphors. 

Whatever. He makes three paralegals cry in his first week back, fires one clerk and then scales back his hours again, much to the relief of everyone who likes their job. 

Amy does a lot of his paperwork for him, talks on the phone a lot because he works from home, and watches him fire one secretary and then terrorize the other into either quitting or growing a spine. 

Mary goes with option B, but it takes so long that Amy kind of loses interest in the whole thing. It’s only fun if it’s explosive, and goddamn it, she’s joined the dark side at some point, hasn’t she?

In the break room, the betting pool on how long it’ll take Peter to foist those kids off on boarding schools and nannies is getting bigger and bigger. 

Apart from the partners, Amy is the only one who even knows those kids’ names. She keeps her mouth shut and silently wonders, because Peter is many things, but a parent, he is not. 

+

Things even out, eventually. 

Peter works five days a week again, wins court cases and looks fantastic in his designer suits. If Amy were into men, she’d tap that in a hot minute. 

The only difference is that he now leaves at five pm on the dot every day and rarely goes out for drinks after work anymore. 

Amy misses the free martinis, but she adores the lack of overtime. 

Mary figures out the secret to dealing with Peter Hale and somehow manages to prevail against him, despite not having a single, sarcastic bone in her body. Amy asks her out a couple of time, but it fizzles out quickly. She’s nice enough but sort of… bland. 

She gets why Peter still occasionally calls her by a wrong name just to get a rise out of her. 

And then The Thing happens. 

+

The Thing is actually a person and he doesn’t so much ‘happen’ as ‘turn up’, but the sentiment is the same.

He’s a few years younger than her, with hypnotically bright eyes, a lip ring and a toddler on his hip. He’s wearing jeans and a flannel that’s buttoned all the way, even the cuffs. It looks weird. She’s on her way to Peter’s office when he stops her with an apologetic grin. 

“Hi, sorry, but can you tell me where I can find Peter Hale?”

The kid, who looks two or three, cheers, “Peta Da, Peta Da.”

Amy has a hunch that she’s currently meeting Cora Maria Hale, age now roughly two and a half. And unfairly gorgeous lip ring guy, who might be anyone from the nanny to the mail man. 

Still, she might be wrong, so she asks, “Do you have an appointment?”

Lip ring grins winningly. “If I say no, are you going to kick us out? Because this is sort of an emergency.”

“No. Follow me.”

She marches them past Mary and straight into Peter’s office. Maybe-Cora is still chanting his name, babbling in between. Lip ring seems to understand her, but Amy can only make out gibberish. 

“Peter?” she asks. He’s sitting at his desk, buried in paperwork. The opposition is trying to outmaneuver them by throwing a ton of legalese at them and they have less than twenty-four hours to find a loophole somewhere in a three hundred page contract. He’s a little stressed.

“What?” he snaps, not looking up.

“Oh, look, grumpy Peter,” Lip ring snarks as he shoulders past her and into the office. Peter’s head shoots up so quickly, Amy is surprised he doesn’t give himself whiplash.

“Stiles?!”

Is that a name?

“Why do you have Cora?”

He stands, and pushes around the desk just in time for Definitely-Cora, newly put on her feet, to smash into his kneecaps with a squeal. He doesn’t even hesitate to hoist her up, high enough to look her in the eye. “Where did you come from?” he asks her. 

She kicks her little legs and announces, “Water! Whoosh!” Then she tries to stick her fingers up his nostrils and he deftly changes his grip on her so she’s suddenly facing outward (How does he do that without dropping her?) and he props her on his hips like a sack of flour. 

Peter is a parent. 

Peter is a good parent. 

He abandoned his paperwork without a moment’s hesitation, greeted her warmly, and doesn’t seem to care that she’s wrinkling his expensive suit beyond saving. Amy takes a minute to reboot her system after that revelation. Peter Hale, asshole extraordinaire, loves that kid. And he doesn’t even try to hide it.

Cora seems delighted by her new position and starts kicking and flailing to her heart’s content. Peter tickles her side once and then turns his attention to Stiles. 

“Translation?”

Belatedly, Stiles follows after Cora away from the door and plops down on the sofa. “A pipe burst at daycare. The store is a madhouse today, and she’s likely to get trampled. I called up the usual suspects, but everyone is busy. Even Alli is apartment hunting. You’re our only hope, Obi Wan Kenobi.”

“Dork,” Peter accuses, only for Cora to echo the word. Both men ignore her. And Amy, which suits her just fine. This is _fascinating_. It’s like Peter is a whole different animal, all of a sudden. 

Suddenly, her boss frowns. “Why are you dressed like that?”

Stiles looks down himself, then back up at Peter. “Erm, you work here?” he suggests, like that should be obvious. Amy has no idea what that has to do with his clothes. 

Peter does, though, because he frowns. “Don’t do that.”

Suddenly, the younger man grins, bright as sunshine and nods. “Alright, you big grump. Can you keep her?”

The answer to which is no. It’s two in the afternoon and they have about two hundred and fifty pages of fine print left to comb through. In detail. Until tomorrow, nine am. 

But Peter just shrugs. “We’ll make do.”

Stiles crows in victory, skips to his feet and presses a brief kiss to Cora’s head before beaming at Peter like he hung the moon and announcing, “Super. I’m headed back to work. Liam and Mason looked like puppies abandoned at the pound when I left them to the hordes!”

He waves, gives the kid one last tickle under the chin and then blows out as fast as he appeared, leaving behind one toddler and a bag of supplies.

Peter takes a deep breath and then a long look at his niece, before sitting down and pulling her into his lap. He starts taking off her shoes while ordering Amy, “get anything breakable above five feet and close the door. There’s crayons and a coloring book in that bag, along with her favorite blanket. We’ll set her up by the desk. Is there any juice left in the break room?”

Amy hesitates. “Do you want to me to call Mary in? Maybe she can – “

He waves her off. “This,” he holds up the little girl like show and tell, “is a scud missile in human form. If it can be rammed, beaten, eaten or broken, she will do so. She’d eat Mary raw and spit out bone dust.”

“Raw, raw, raw! Lion! Rawwwwwww!”

“Exactly. You’re a tiny terror and the world trembles before your might.”

“I’m a lion! Rawww!” She tries to take out his eye. He catches her hands in his, squeeze briefly and then boops her on the nose, before dumping her unceremoniously on the sofa and getting her bag himself. 

The first thing out of it is a well-loved, slightly tattered handmade afghan in reds and yellows, which he spreads by his desk. Next come a handful of little squishy balls, a bunny with a purple ear, a stack of coloring books and an avalanche of crayons.

Cora wiggles off the sofa and rushes over, belly-flopping onto the blanket and grabbing the balls to start beating them into the ground. Peter ruffles her hair, straightens and turns to Amy. 

“Juice?” he asks.

Dazed, Amy nods. 

+

Thirty minutes into their little trip beyond the looking glass, Mary pokes her head in for something and spots the kid. 

She coos, loses her train of thought and gets kicked out in search of cookies. Peter rolls his eyes like his adorable, entirely un-Hale offspring is nothing to gawk at and goes back to work. 

That’d be that, except Mary is the biggest gossip in town and ten minutes later, Maggie comes in, needing an extremely important signature, right now. 

After her it’s Joel and Dana, then it’s Ennis, then Kali and finally Jim, the janitor. 

After an hour, Peter flings his pen down, leans back in his chair and lets loose a long, explicit string of curses. 

“Bad!” Cora announces from where she’s scaling the bookshelves. Amy tried to stop her the first five times, but Peter just watches and occasionally tells her, “Lower.”

Cora obediently changes direction every time and happily keeps leaving little footprints all over the place. 

Amy is developing a twitch above one eye. She might not know much about childcare, but she does know that this is not how it’s supposed to go. 

“Very bad,” Peter agrees readily. “But everyone’s being more moronic today than usual, thanks to you, sweetheart. At this rate, we’ll never get this done.”

“We could lock the door,” Amy suggests.

Peter gives her a pointed look, then turns toward the wall of windows facing the hallway. Yeah. Okay. 

“Do you have a problem working from my house?” 

Wait. What?

She doesn’t realize she said that out loud until he says. “My house. It’s unprofessional, but it’s also quiet until everyone gets home and this one,” he hooks a thumb at Cora, “would be squared away and less annoying.”

“Peta Da! Not ‘nnoying!”

“Yes, you are. I adore you anyway.”

“Yay!”

“Now hush.”

“’K.”

It takes every ounce of restraint Amy is capable off, but the words, “Yes, please, show me how you live!” do not cross her lips. Instead she nods, very earnestly and manages a subdued, “It’d be quieter.”

+

Peter lives in a freaking mansion. 

No other word for it. 

A mansion with an avalanche of children’s toys all over the front yard. Actually, the toys are more jarring than the mansion, because Amy expected extravagance. She didn’t expect a full playground to ruin the view. 

Cora unbuckles herself and is out of the car like a shot, even before Amy has pulled her own car into the drive. Peter corrals her effortlessly and after a few stern words, she quietly pulls her bag out of the car and follows him toward the front door like a woman walking to the gallows. 

Halfway there, she spots a cherry red SUV parked by the side of the house and cheers. “Alli!”

Amy grabs a box of files (Peter already has the other one) and trots after uncle and niece. 

Inside, the Too Much Money, Too Many Kids theme continues. High ceilings, art on the walls, toys everywhere. And, weirdly, yarn. She spots at least three baskets full of various craft projects just by peeking into the living room for a second. 

Then the door falls shut behind them and a woman’s voice calls, “Peter?!”

A moment later, a woman about Stiles’ age with the most gorgeous hair appears. She’s in leggings and an oversized sweater, very fashionable, with thick, woolen socks on her feet. Homey. 

“I thought you were apartment hunting?” Peter greets, holding still for the woman to press a kiss to his cheek.

She shrugs and takes Cora’s bag from her, before kneeling to help the little girl take off her shoes. “My last two appointments were cancelled. Went by the store, Stiles filled me in. I’m picking up Derek and Laura from school and would have collected Cora from you after.”

She lifts Cora, who goes putty-still, and snuggles her close. The girl digs her hands into the woman’s hair and holds on. 

“Hi, I’m Allison,” she finally introduces herself and Amy takes the offered hand, shakes it. 

“Amy Thompson. I work with Peter.”

“Lucky you,” Allison counters. “I’m just squatting.”

Peter rolls his eyes as he toes off his shoes. “You’re not squatting. Stiles told you, take your time. We have the space, you can stay until you’ve found a new place.”

Allison shrugs. “Still. I’ve gotten used to my space over the past year.”

“But we like having an in-built baby sitter.”

Allison laughs and turns to Amy, “I spent a year abroad and just got back. Stiles and Peter are letting me crash here, since they’ve got all my things set up in their spare bedroom anyway.” 

Okay. Does that mean Allison is not Peter’s girlfriend? But Stiles… is Peter dating Stiles? Where did all these people come from? Amy always thought of Peter as an elitist snob who doesn’t surround himself with peasants, but Allison seems perfectly normal and nice. So did Stiles, for that matter. 

Peter rolls his eyes again. Hard. “We’re setting up in the living room. Do you mind keeping an eye on her?”

“Of course not. You can help me pick the movies for tonight and then we’ll pick up your sister and brother, how does that sound?”

Cora apparently approves, because she cheers, while Peter frowns, “It’s only Thursday.”

“Yeah. But it’s Erica’s birthday tomorrow, so we moved it up a day, remember?”

He rubs at his forehead. “I hate you all.”

“No, you don’t. Go work!”

She uses Cora’s hand to wave at him and then flounces out of the room.

Amy takes a moment to watch her boss visibly grind his teeth and then, just because she wants to, she says, “You know, I always thought your life would be boring.”

Peter gives her a look full of pity. “If you think that’s entertaining, stick around a few hours. It’s Pizza Night.”

+

They get lucky. 

Three hours after setting up with coffee, sandwiches and two boxes of paperwork, they find the loophole Peter needs to nail the opposition to the wall, ass first. 

It’s going to be glorious and Amy has permission to be there and watch, already, so she figures that’s it. 

Time to go. 

Allison returned with the kids a while ago, but steered them straight up the stairs, and Peter probably wants to be rid of her. 

“I should head out, then,” she says.

Peter leans back in his seat and gives her a very long look that she cannot, for the life of her decipher. 

Finally, when she’s about to give in and ask what’s going on, he offers, “Or you could stay.”

“But, you have that family thing tonight, don’t you?”

He rolls his eyes. “Which I am inviting you to. Besides, the ‘family thing’ happens once a week, like clockwork, and it’s not like the entire brood doesn’t see each other during the week all the times.” He turns a dark look toward the front door. “I’ve lost track of how many people have a key to this place.”

Peter gives out keys to his home to people? Other people? People who are not him?

Amy spends about five seconds dithering between the remains of their professional relationship and her burning curiosity. 

Guess which wins?

“Okay!”

+

Peter changes.

Peter changes into jeans and a Henley.

Peter changes into jeans so worn they look like they’re about to fall off and a Henley that makes all other shirts on this planet jealous and he’s barefoot and this isn’t fair. Amy doesn’t even go for men and this is still not fair. 

Allison is either a telepath, or has spotted Amy’s drooling, because she whispers a quiet, “I know, right?”

“Eugh,” Laura Hale, age twelve, announces from where she’s putting away her homework nearby. “It’s Uncle Peter, Alli, don’t be gross.”

“You’re gross,” Allison returns, entirely unimpressed. “Speaking of gross, any news about what’s his face?”

Laura sniffs. “His name is Jeff, and no.”

“Liar,” Derek, her little brother, injects, almost falling off his chair in his haste to declare, “He said he liked her t-shirt and she almost fainted!”

“Did not!”

“Did too!”

“Did not!”

“Elephant,” Peter roars from the kitchen, which startles everyone into silence, except Allison, who giggles and yells back, “Need help?”

She doesn’t wait for an answer, just makes her way over to help him. Amy trails after and somehow gets put in charge of chopping tomatoes for a truly frightening bowl of salad. Allison is making some sort of fruit punch and Peter is making a cake for dessert. 

The kids clear away their things and then the older two automatically and without being order to start putting out glasses, napkins and plates. No cutlery. 

Fifteen minutes later, the front door bangs open and shut, followed by Stiles calling, “I dumped the closing on the puppies, be there in five!”

True to his word, he does appear a few minutes later, gets glomped by the kids and then kisses both Allison and Peter on the cheek. Amy, watching him, finally gets the weird clothing-related interaction at the office today. 

Stiles changed after getting home, into board shorts and a t-shirt and there are tattoos. All over him. Flowers on one calf, a trio of butterflies in flight on the other, string wrapped around his left wrist, writing scrolling along his right, a bow and arrow in the cook of his elbow, and something huge and dark peeking out the back of his shirt. The weird, buttoned-up look was to hide his ink and Peter didn’t like it. 

He ruffles a hand through the younger man’s hair now, then draws him in and presses a proper kiss to his lips. Stiles hums, happily, before Peter tells him, “Don’t try to play Stepford. You’re bad at it.”

Stiles laughs instead of being offended. “Okay. Next time I drop by your office, I’ll do it shirtless.”

“That’d be a showstopper.”

“Showstopper?” little Cora demands. 

“Because everyone would stop and stare at Stiles’ tattoos,” Allison explains and Cora suddenly brightens, running over to Stiles and smacking her hands into the smallest of the butterflies on his leg. It’s done in oranges and reds and looks like it’s about to fly off his skin into reality. 

“Me, me!” she announces. 

Stiles laughs. “And Derek and Laura, yeah. Clever girl. How was your day?” 

Not just boyfriends, then. Boyfriends don’t get tattoos for each other’s kids. This is serious. Peter Hale is serious about a man ten years younger than him, who sports a ton of tattoos and a lip ring. 

Okay then.

+

Erica, whose birthday it is tomorrow, is first through the door, a toddler with the deepest chocolate eyes on her hip. She has even more tattoos than Stiles and a mane of golden hair.

She’s followed by what has to be the little girl’s father, a tall, dark, silent fellow with two bottles of wine in hand. 

After them come Scott, who is a vet, and Kira, his wife, who looks just barely pregnant and smiles like sunrise. 

Then a terrifying woman in a pencil skirt who introduces herself as, “Lydia, the only sane one around here,” and a guy who wears a scarf in eighty degree weather. His name is Isaac. 

Then it’s Helen, who looks more Peter’s age, with a little girl in tow. Paige flings herself past the adults straight at Derek and starts babbling.

The entire house is suddenly filled with loud, happy, crazy people who talk and shout over each other, curse, laugh, and generally act like maniacs. 

And this is a weekly thing?

Amy expects Peter to hang around the edges of the group, figures they aren’t really _his_ group, because they all seem to be Stiles’ age, so he probably brought them with him, but she’s wrong. 

Again.

Is anything about Work Peter real, or is he entirely made up?

Peter is sitting with Kira and Scott, talking about dogs and good breeds for kids, while also keeping up half a conversation with Lydia and Stiles about some new mathematical theory Lydia is working on. It goes straight over Amy’s head, but Stiles is keeping up, to no-one’s apparent surprise. 

Erica has set her kid and Cora up to play and is coaching them while also laying into Isaac for his shitty taste in music. Boyd, meanwhile, has pulled up one of the craft baskets and is digging through it, commenting on things to Allison, in between listening to her tell of her apartment hunting exploits. 

The three older kids are flitting between the adults like manic butterflies. 

Helen appears suddenly at Amy’s side and introduces herself with a smile. “They’re a bit mad, aren’t they?”

Amy nods. 

“When I first met Peter, it was because our kids got involved in a fight at school. He was this hapless, clueless guy, who had three kids to raise and didn’t know how and I sort of pitied him, you know?”

“He didn’t deal well at first,” Amy confesses, because it’s true.

“Oh, he dealt. Those kids were little bundles of trauma and now look at them. I’m an only child and after my husband bailed, I thought it would just be Paige and me. Then the Hales came along and just sucked us in.” She smiles, softly, and brightly. “They’re good people, all of them. Don’t let the tattoos and the swearing and the weird t-shirts put you off.”

Isaac’s shirt declares him part of a Cult of Awesome. There is a rainbow-farting unicorn on his back. Amy is too scared to ask.

Amy snorts, nods and then asks, “Okay, but why are you telling me this?”

Helen laughs outright this time and pats Amy on the hand. “Honey, you’ve been assimilated. I’m your welcoming committee.”

“The newest gets to induct the next victim,” Stiles sing-songs as he blows past, phone in hand. “Helen, your usual? Paige wants pineapple again. Amy?”

“Yes, thanks,” Helen answers. 

“Pineapple is fine?” Amy hedges. 

“Pineapple it is. Excuse me while I order my weight in junk food!”

And then he’s out of the room. He bounces. A second later he’s back, phone forgotten somewhere, a bundle of fabric in hand instead.

“Oh, I forgot. Converts get presents! This one matches your hair!”

And then he throws the finest, gossamer shrug Amy has ever seen over her shoulders and disappears again. It’s done entirely in red and purples with a few brown and orange accents and it is stunning. It’s also incredibly soft to touch. 

Amy looks at Helen, entirely nonplussed, and Helen just shrugs. “He swathes people in wool and then sits on them until Stockholm Syndrome sets in. It’s his standard MO.”

Amy can’t help it. Her boss’ life is a madhouse, the inmates are running it, apparently, she has been assimilated and she doesn’t even care. 

But that may be the Stockholm Syndrome talking. 

+


End file.
